


...Well?

by Caskuro



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types, Assassin's Creed RPF
Genre: Five Times, Gen, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, M/M, Templar Leonardo da Vinci, Time Skips, Vague Insinuations and Confusion May Abound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28060566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caskuro/pseuds/Caskuro
Summary: The question is laughable, and is not even worth consideration, at first.Also known as 'Five Times Leonardo Broke The Borgia Brain'
Relationships: Cesare Borgia/Leonardo da Vinci





	...Well?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rinascimento](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinascimento/gifts).



_ The first time he is asked, there is no answer save that of a smile. Indulgent, yet thin as if to speak quietly of the danger upon which the artist tread. A warning. _

A fresh little hire, wrangled and brought before him. With eyes that beheld secrets that the Borgia was keen on knowing, yet the painter was not so much upon sharing. They  **smiled** though those Italian lips did not, though the latter spills his allegiance delicately. Subtly, wrapped in words that no guard understood the true depth thereof.

**Oh** . So  _ that _ is why~.

Still there is no answer. Instead a position and pension, with a room all for himself. 

A tower, as those creative minds so adored the clouds did they not?

_ The second time, a scoff resounds. Blue eyes seem amused in their own light, and he will not think of it further. Why would he? The man is there to design war machines. _

Each delay irks him more than the last- yet even then an almost infinite thread of patience is unwound for the elder. Not at all because of the gap in age, but more-so out of  **curiosity** . Leonardo painted  **cities** . Had just then laid a map in his hands and uttered those few words that the Duke had no time to entertain.

Nor the desire to. A bark unbidden escapes his throat however.

This was a new, yet interesting development.

_ The third is less a question, and more a statement- as surgeon-delicate hands enact their descriptor; closing what should never have opened. _

It was no War of the Roses, but the battle was nonetheless  **violent** .  _ Cataclysmic _ in all ways that Cesare so loved best. Mainly so, for the fact he so entirely demolished what briefly had risen. A resistance more futile than sand against the tides.

What he had  _ not _ foreseen, was the  **child** with their paring knife.    
Revenge for the father-- how…  _ sweet _ .

It is with disgruntled shame that he commands the scientist to sew his skin when he returns, aggravated by pain and pride as the bandaging did only so much.

‘How long did you ride?’ The blonde inquires placidly.

The Duke deems no need to answer, only to jerk away when the last of the linen is pulled away; sticking harshly to the insides of his flesh and summoning more blood to the fore.

He is hushed, an instinct he assumes. Yet it does nothing to prevent his low growl of warning.

Leonardo murmurs again, and gets to work.

_ Then the count is four, and Spanish lips open as if to answer, but then close; sharp eyes and sharper blade leveled just the same. _

For it is a silent promise: ‘speak anything, and you will regret it with such fervour that Judas Iscariot would need to heft pace to keep up’.

Then he  **_lunges_ ** , and the violence between them results in torn clothes, and broken quills, and wounds only brought about by  _ teeth _ and  **hands** . 

Bruises more on Italian flesh than the Spaniard’s, for the Duke is insistent, and so does love his control. Entertains the very idea of skinning this rabbit with his teeth, keeping him as his own.

Possessiveness. Territorialism. Was there much a difference?

When the rabbit has  **kick** , he begins to think so.

_ Five, and this time it comes from his kin. _

Lucrezia has always been able to see beyond his deliberately placed looking glass. Briefly he wonders if it was more because he allowed it, or because they shared the same blood and so thus possibly the same  **mind** .

For once, he favours the former. For he too has the same blood as his  _ father _ , and does not quite favour the thought of sharing such with him.

“You don’t visit as often.” She says; the statement wrapped doubly within several queries at once. Tone is gentle, for she knows him in these moments. How raw, and ragged in ways that it seems the only thing keeping him from unravelling was his Cherubim plate-mail.

He’s removed it now, and whether or not her comparison was metaphor, the sagging of his stature was statement enough to the truth of it. “I have become… busy, dear sister.”

“War has never kept you before.”

“It is not war that keeps me.”

Blonde brows furrow then, and he can envision another set doing the very same thing. He scowls. “Stop that. It is unbecoming.”

“What,  **thinking** ?”

“Perhaps. But no.”

“You do not command your engineer to stop.”

Grit teeth, but quiet. She is as a viper; whip-quick and striking straight for the center. If she were savvy in sword-play, he may be hesitant to go against her.

Suddenly, whatever swell was within him now ebbs as the very ocean, and sinks just as deep. The breath to leave him almost leaves him entirely empty, and he pours wine for lack of anything stronger.

“It is his  **job** to think, unlike you. Without _him_...”

  
She _smiles_ , and he begins to question  **everything** .

**Author's Note:**

> Knowing most of you will be confused, the question was - 'Do you trust me/him?'
> 
> Because in my mind, Cesare only ever trusts himself. He's a lonely man, and it's all self-inflicted.


End file.
